Deaf and Dumb
by Ophelias dream
Summary: Does anyone hear the sound? Does anyone care? Ought they be allowed to yell then?DG


_Deaf and Dumb_

It wasn't fair to you; it was never fair to any of us. Why was it left to us to defend our own youth, our own innocence? We had to dirty our hands to do that. For what? To watch each other die? To kill one another, to forget that we were all just kids fighting an adult war?

We never realize it did we; we were all the pawns—the means to an end.

But you and your kind weren't even fighting under the pretense of love or right. You were fighting out of greed and for yourself. For something that would never be given to you.

All the bull shit they spewed at us. That's what it was, but for you, that was all you got. I got love, and laughs and smiles along with war. You got contempt and anger. Where was the fear; the fear that you might be lost, the fear that the young one might not make it? Why did they not fear for you? I don't want to insult them, because we weren't any better, but they didn't care. All of them cared so much and they didn't care a snit about you. How must that feel? When you find out—when you discover that it was all for naught.

I know you hate me for this, for feeling sorry for you, for defending you and your thoughts, for putting the blame on someone else. But it wasn't your fault Draco, it wasn't. Yes, each man must own up to his own actions, but were those your actions Draco? Did any of us really have a choice? You turning sides would have been as ludicrous as me switching over. And you still kind of did didn't you? You didn't give in, you did what the best of us couldn't even think to do; not dominate the other, but not sink to that level.

None of us realized it even when it was right in our face. The evil was the killing. You can't judge a people by one mans skewed views. You can't say it was each mans fault to do actions they were manipulated to do, you can fault him for being manipulated though.  
"Get up"

"I can't"

"_Get up!"_

"I told you. I can't." Said a boy fiercely, lying on the ground staring up at a girl, "There's nothing out there to get up for."

His eyes were on her face and staring straight into her eyes, he didn't challenge her or ask her to combat him, and he was telling her exactly how it was.

"Even _you_ can't make me get up." Were the kindest words he would offer her, he wasn't cruel though. He was just being honest.

"Get _up._" She almost yelled at him. She knew he wouldn't though. "Why won't you _try_?" She begged angrily.

"The screaming in the distance, the yells and flashes; it's all bells and whistles out there,

is it Weasley?" he asked the fierceness not leaving his gaze.

"What's that even got to do with it." She whispered, hovering over his body. He lay there immobile and dying and she crouched over him crying.

"You think those people scream for the effect?" He continued "They don't realize no ones listening for their screams, the only people who are listening for their screams are the people cursing them, because they want to know they've got them" He stared, she looked down, still crying, his words were hurting her and he knew it, "and that they're dead." He finished.

"How pathetic, the only people that care enough to watch as we die are our killers." He finished. He'd say his piece and his eyes wouldn't leave hers, so she would hear him.

"Tha—wha—that's not true." Even if he had to shatter her world he'd show her. She had to see.

"No one's listening Weasley" he said more softly, but his gaze held and it was all she could do to not cry harder.

"Don't you get it?" he pushed harder "_No ones listening_."

"Draco, get up." She begged. Her voice was pathetic and small.

"Can you make them listen?" his voice rose.

"Make them forget to look at my face and my past and my views and their hate for me and listen to the screams of everyone?" he was almost yelling and it was straining on his body. "Hear it _all, o_f your side, of their side, of the people forced to take a side. Are they ever going to hear the whole sound?" her face was frozen; it was lost in sadness and horror. Why was he saying this? "The sound of war." He brought his voice down a little "Cause it's horrifying, the sound, it weighs you down." His eyes never left hers and he let his words get softer and let his volume fall to a normal speaking level, "It makes you wish you were blind, deaf and dumb Weasley."

When he finished speaking he just stared at her and she started to cry again, she knew it was weak, and her tears didn't change anything, not the situation and not his mind but they wouldn't stop coming and falling from her eyes. He wasn't talking any more though, it was her turn.

"I don't know," she said not defeated but broken down a little, "I don't know if they'll ever hear it; _I_ can't hear it Draco because I'm looking at you." She whispered, as if when her voice became louder her tears would over come the words, "I'm selfish, you're right, I care less about the war than I do about one cynical dying man." She finished; all she could do was beg of him that which he did not have the power to, and even if he did probably would not, give.

He looked over her calmly and composedly and his only response a correction.

"I'm not a man Weasley. I'm just a boy." But he was right, she looked at his face it was true; there was still a boyish tint, it was the arrogance and stubbornness in his face. It was a mans face cause it was made to look that way, but there was a boy inside refusing to leave too adamant and almost childishly putting his foot down. _It's that childish morality he has_, she thought.

It's a strange thing to think because he was such a bitter and combative person but he was so moral all the same. There's no other word to describe it.

To him everything had a right and a wrong, there might be some discrepancies and a few shades of grey, but if you explored it all, at the end there was a right and there was a wrong. Sometimes his ideas of what each was seem skewed. They may have even seemed wrong to you or me, but he stuck to them. Who can say that of themselves but a child though? Do we not always find a reason to even go against what we ourselves believe in? Find excuses? He doesn't excuse himself, but neither does he excuse the rest of us. He is a boy. A beautiful boy. And when you think about it you begin to think that maybe we see too many shades of grey and miss the big picture.

We get so concerned with the finite details that we miss the overall theory.

"I—I expect if you were a man you'd be fighting the battle then." The only way her words came out was in stutters. She was fighting a losing battle, one she desperately needed to win.

"If I were a man Weasley," he grit his teeth, "I'd _stop_ the battle."

His eyes turned angry and his gaze lost their focus on her face.

"But I'm not a man, I'm a boy." His expression would have been comical, almost a pout, if it were not attached to a boy, dying on a battle field.

It was hard to understand. Was he proud or did he resent himself being a boy? Which was it she supposed it really didn't matter.

She was the sensitive and caring one. That was all she had to rely on now.

"What about your childhood dreams Draco? What about your fantasies? Doesn't anything in you—don't any of _those_ want to get up and keep going?" _isn't there any reason for you to get up?_

"Keep going Weasley," he was expecting this, "yes. But to where?"

She looked down at him with pity for his loss, his loss of childhood and he saw right through it.

"You're so convinced, Weasley, that my family and friends made me this way, aren't you?" he couldn't have her looking like that; he knew he ought to feel guilty, he knew how this would end, but he had to do it. It was his right.

"You think that they stole from me something precious. Maybe they did, but where was I going Weasley? I was following them, in fact I was so good at following them that I knew where they were going, I took lead." He finished.

He looked, almost pitying at her, oh how the tables had turned she thought he was naïve and defeatist and now he knew and she knew that she was the naïve one.

Her arms were bucking and she was heaving above him, but she wasn't crying anymore. But she was hearing his words.

"I'm not different from them out there. I'm wrong too. I can't be right because I can't stop caring, and I can't stop trying to change your mind." It was a statement but she was questioning him. She wanted to hear that she was doing right. She needed to hear that, because she wanted to save him.

"Sure Weasley, I had a dream," he stared at her; he wasn't going to give her that, that comfort. She had nothing, not even words to hide behind now.

"I just wanted to get away from it all. I wanted an out." He said.

"That's all Weasley, that's the dream. Can anything out there give that to me?" he demanded softly and she turned away for a moment.

He looked at her meaningfully for a moment and then his eyes turned to the same inquisitive yet knowing look. _No_ his eyes said_ getting up wont gives that to me._

_I can give it to you Draco _he almost dared her to say it, but she looked back and he wasn't daring her anymore. She had it sitting on her tongue though, waiting to get out, begging banging at the back of her lips but she kept them sealed.

This was it, this was the 'them' that was holding the conversation together, but that could not get involved.

They just stared and no one did anything.

She wouldn't say it, but she wouldn't let it go completely unrecognized.  
"Don't you love anything? Flying? The trees? The lake? Don't you love anything enough? Don't-Don't you love any_body_?" she was reaching hysterics.

"What's that got to do with it Weasley." He knew what she wanted, she knew it too.

"It's got everything to do with it." She yelled down at him, her face now a mere half foot from his face. This was her area: love. He smiled because he knew it. And he knew they'd get there.

"I've seen love before Weasley, I was told about love too you know." He responded calmly closing his eyes, it was getting tiring, talking.

She was surprised and she didn't want to show it but he knew she was. Of course she had assumed they couldn't love, she had assumed they wouldn't feel that human emotion, that there was no way they were human.

"My mother loved my father Weasley," he almost laughed when he opened his eyes again because he already knew what he'd see, a girl keeping her mouth shut but bursting to refute and battle his every word. "Yes what they shared was love. It was desperation and fear, but it was love." He reaffirmed firmly.

"They _all_ love each other" and his eyes met hers, "in the beginning. We are to prideful too marry someone that we do not love." She almost smiled a little here, but she stayed silent as he continued. Here they could not be themselves, whether she wanted to admit it or not; this was the end and this once they couldn't make everything a joke, for once they had to leave sarcasm at the door. "Be it love for money, love for fame, love for beauty." He looked at her and his eyebrow rose at his next words "These things are not what you recognize as love right? Love is wholesome" his gaze turned solid "and meaningful" his gaze was almost hardened. "and not superficial." He was challenging her, and she would not bite, but oh how she wanted to; she would let him finish though.

"That's one love though Weasley. The love I know of, it's what's dangerous about love. You think your kind of love makes people do stupid things? The kind of love I've seen is even worse." He said darkly "but yes, I've seen love, and no Weasley, that is not enough.

"Don't you want another kind of love Draco?" She reached her hand toward his own, but never made it.

"I don't know" he said, his eyes were harsh. He wasn't going to let the conversation be stopped by anything. He wouldn't let her not let him get the words out. His eyes stayed harsh and it almost hurt her but they were honest.

"I've never _missed_ it Weasley. But I don't know if I'd want it." His words were harsh too.

She reached down to touch his face but he grabbed her hand first, hard, and looked at her fiercely.

"One day, if ever they hear it Weasley" he could feel it coming but she could not, they had to finish, "Or maybe you'll hear it, and you'll show it to them. No matter how, if they ever hear it then I will miss it Weasley and I will regret and I will deserve the pity for that which I cannot experience. But now Weasley?" his eyes closed again, he was afraid, but not of dying, of her not seeing before he did.

"The things you talk about, love, passion, happiness." he said each with a pointed and finished tone.

"I can't miss those things," he opened his eyes slightly to see her staring down at him her eyes grasping at his words and her ears taking them, "they don't belong in this world." He said softly and he closed his eyes to rest the again, but not soon enough to miss the look of pain cross her face.

They were quite for a few moments; they let them pass unused by words, but not wasted.

"What if they never hear it Draco," she got out, her voice horse and broken from her sobs and her silence, "what if _I_ never hear it. Then what of this all?"

His eyes were open again and he was looking at her almost interestedly.

"I do wonder if you'll hear it in a few minuets. The rest of the world though. I don't know." He looked at her blankly, "I don't know Weasley, if I did, maybe there'd be a purpose."

His grip lessened on her hand so it was almost like he was holding it instead of crushing it, her hand was numb and unfeeling from his tight grip but she didn't move a finger.

She stared at him and saw the cold sweat breaking out and she knew it was close.

"Draco. Draco- I," he had said what he needed to say, now it was her desperate scramble to make it all not matter and keep him here.

"Don't Weasley" he whispered, "You can't say something now. Not here."

She looked down at him horrified. She knew and he knew what she was going to say, why wouldn't he give her the comfort of those words? Why'd he have to make it harder still?

She felt his grip fall loosely around her fingers. He was; he was dying. She couldn't heal him and she couldn't make him feel her love. She could only watch him and listen for his words.

He yelled in pain and she jumped and clutched his arm harder, she knew she was the only one that heard it, he was right no one cared. But at the same time, she heard nothing of the field; the screams and curses didn't make it through his words and yells.

He looked up at her, his eyes barely making it open and his breath heavier, color draining from his face.

She opened her mouth to say anything, or just let everything flow out; tell him that maybe there was a way, and that he could look for it, or she could look for it, or that together they could show people but he cut her off before she could say anything.

"I'll miss you Weasley." He said with a half smile half smirk that made his lips twist up. Then his grip loosened completely and his hand fell from hers and hit the ground.

She just missed his fingers as she grasped her own hand tightly in attempts to catch his from falling.

Then everything was numb.

Her face was numb as were her tears and her voice. She was deaf and dumb; everything was gone; noise, colors and thought. She was moving but she couldn't feel anything and then it came back; all of it, every feeling and every sensation.

The first thing she heard was screams, and was sure they were her own but her mouth was closed; _no_, it was the sound of war.

She stood up and looked away from Draco's body, you couldn't tell and no one would know that he'd been talking seconds before, no one would know that his one dream and one desire was to get away. To the world he was a dead body from the one of the sides. Her eyes scanned the field and the woods and the castle, and as she scanned she heard everyone screaming; it was hate and pain and dying. It was everyone hoping it would stop but not wanting to let their guard down.

She choked down her tears and stopped crying; turning, shiny-eyed and raging to the world. She'd make them hear. Make them hear the horrid sound they'd made him hear his whole life. Maybe then it would end and they could all dream without the world getting in the way. Maybe then they he'd allowed them to love.


End file.
